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Friday, January 30, 2015

Loaded Baked Potato Chips with Green Chile Ranch Dressing

These Loaded Baked Potato Chips with Green Chile Ranch Dressing are brought to you in part by Farmland® and Latina Bloggers Connect. These are a twist on a classic pub recipe, with oven baked potatoes loaded with cheese and bacon, served with a spicy green chile ranch dressing. While this post was compensated, the recipe and opinions in the post are entirely my own.

Welcome back for a week of homegating recipes! We are concentrating on easy recipes that you can make for your home celebrations or ones that you can take to a friend's or family member's house to celebrate watching the big game! Today I have a New Mexico inspired appetizer that you can make and incorporate into your big game celebrations! These Loaded Baked Potato Chips with Green Chile Ranch Dressing are a twist on classic cheese fries and ranch dressing that you order at your local pub, but of a smokey and spicy variation!

I am so excited to introduce you to and/or talk with you about Farmland® Bacon! Farmland Bacon offers quality hickory smoked bacon where you can definitely taste the quality in their product! The bacon is slowly smoked over real hardwoods, and Farmland takes great pride in their curing and smoking techniques. You can taste the different in this bacon, and it's definitely not your average bacon! You'll be forcing yourself to refrain from eating the entire package.

One of my favorite appetizers is loaded fries with cheese and bacon, dipped in ranch dressing (of course!). Today I'm sharing an easy homemade variation of that recipe... but you can use your oven instead of a fryer. I don't really deep fry things because I can't fathom using and throwing away so much oil and it's probably a good thing that I don't because I love fried food! And because I'm from New Mexico and we put green chile on everything, I decided to top these with chopped green chile. AND(!) I also decided to make my own homemade green chile ranch dressing. This dressing has all of the wonderful flavors of traditional ranch dressing, but with the heat and smokiness of green chile. (Don't have or don't like green chile? Leave it out! It's still wonderful without it.)

I hope that if you're homegating for the big game, that you try out this recipe! What are you planning on doing to celebrate the big game?

Please visit Farmland® to learn more about their products and where you can purchase them in your local grocery store. They not only offer quality bacon, but also gluten-free breakfast sausages to also start your day!

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil, then grease the top of the foil with your preferred oil. (I use a very thin coating of bacon grease).

Line the potato slices in a single layer on the baking sheet, careful not to line them too close (otherwise they'll steam and not crisp up properly)-- you may need two baking sheets. Lightly grease the tops of the potato slices (again with your preferred oil), then sprinkle lightly with kosher salt and freshly ground pepper.

Bake for 25-30 minutes, flipping the potato slices halfway through. Keep an eye on your potatoes so that they don't brown too quickly. If they're not crispy enough for you, bake for 5 additional minutes or until you get your desired crispiness.

Remove from the oven, and turn up the heat to broil. Top the potato slices with cheese, bacon, and green chile, then return to the oven 3-5 minutes until the cheese is melted. (You can do this in smaller portions in the microwave using a microwave safe dish.)

Add mixture to a small food processor and pulse until smooth. (Skip this step if you'd like the dressing more chunky!)

Pour dressing in an airtight container and store in the fridge. When ready to use, whisk in additional milk to get the desired consistency. The dressing will thicken up in the fridge. Use within 4-5 days of making.